The Power of Denial

I'm working (somewhat) steadily again, but way too slowly. And now it's August and I'm supposed to get my dissertation advisor a complete draft of the diss in two weeks. I am not working fast enough to get that done (I've edited the Intro, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2, but I still need to get through Chapters 3 and 4, which not only need editing, but also about ten extra pages of content apiece). And yet it has to get done. I absolutely have to defend this semester. I love when Plan A is impossible and yet there is no Plan B.

Plan A! Plan A! Plan A!

Back At It

Sorry to leave that last post hanging for so long, while you wondered if I had perhaps dropped out of society. But since I wrote that post I have been slowly getting back into a schedule of working on the dissertation. Progress is being made...slowly.

March Report

I worked pretty steadily in March, getting chapter 4 ready to turn in to my committee member who knows the most about chapter 4. Then I took the first two weeks of April off because of a five-day business trip and the lead-up thereto and catch-up thereafter. The kicker about this business trip is that even though it is FOR work, it puts me behind IN my work.

Today I went to the library for the first time since early April. To say my head is not in dissertation-land is the understatement of the year.

February Report

Oh yes, I'm still working on my dissertation. In fact I had quite a streak going—spending at least a little time every day working on it at the library—until the 28th of February, when I took a Mr. Flossie–mandated day off. (Perhaps he thought I was getting a little too obsessive.)

Result: an introduction that makes a lot more sense.

In other news, I met with my advisor on Friday, and she told me I can either defend during the last week of April, or not until September—she has a house in Canada and plans to be there for the next six months, barring a trip home in April. This was crushing, because in my head, the perfect defense time would be in early June, or at the soonest mid-May. It's hard to imagine waiting until September to have all this behind me, but it is also hard to imagine getting everything done by the end of the month (when my committee would have to have the whole dissertation in hand to have time to read it by April).

However, despite my disappointment at this turn of events, it's starting to seem like the dissertation may get done—whether sooner or later—and that is very, very good.

Back At It

(And fuck those vegan, gluten-free cookies! I've found some honey-mint chocolates that are much tastier, and still dairy/egg/gluten-free.)

Library Weekend

I spent yesterday afternoon and this afternoon in the library study carrel and feel so much better. I've finally broken through the 43,000-word ceiling that had me stymied for so long. Check the meter—I'm now 74% done! (Assuming no word currently in the draft will ever have to be edited out, ha ha.)

More than that, I've had a chance to read through the whole draft, which I'd been avoiding for ages. Reading one's own writing is so painful. But it has given me a sense of the whole that will help as I churn out the remaining 26%.

Speaking of churn out, my latest writing strategy is to write as parodically badly, and with academic clunkiness, as possible. That helps me avoid writers' block, and amuses me to boot. Warning: do not try this at home.*

* OK, maybe a warning label isn't necessary, but it does feel a bit dangerous. If you write badly, will your writing get stuck that way? But I think it's OK, as long as I go back and revise later. It's a variation of Anne LaMotte's philosophy of the "shitty first draft."

February Report

February was so, so busy at work. First we moved our office down the hall, and then I had to go on a five-day business trip to a conference in Chicago. Not very conducive to getting the dissertation done. The second half of the month was better, so I started chapter 3, which I had promised to give my advisor on March 5th. It's still...just a start. Around 12 pages. But better than being empty-handed.

Here is our old office on the eve of moving out:

And here is our new suite of offices, including an outer office, a conference room, and a little office for me:

January Report

Here's January--the stars represent time spent working on revising chapter 2 to give to my second reader (who is harder to please than my advisor). The good news is that he liked it! He said to start on chapter 3 immediately, do not revise or tinker any further at this point, do not pass go, do not collect $200. That works for me and my schedule. On to February—to create, I hope, another 40-page document starting from scratch.

As you can see from the star distribution, I've gotten good at going to the library to work on the weekends. There are just some days in mid-week I can't get quite around to working on the diss. Things at the office have been busy, and then I get tired and all I want to do is go home and play Rock Band.

November Report

The good news is that I got a lot done in November. These stars represent days when I did something towards my dissertation. (There was a lot of revising in November, so it didn't make sense to give myself a star only when I wrote 300 words.) The end result was that I turned in a chapter draft before Thanksgiving.

Since Thanksgiving...not so much. I met with my advisor, who told me the draft looked fine so far, that I should write a conclusion to it and get started on chapter 3 and meet with her in late January. Have I done anything since I met with her? Of course not, and now it's mid-December!

Mr. Flossie is out of town until next Friday—I will try to pick up the desperately-working vibe around campus (it's finals week) and get back to it.

Some Expert Advice

This week I worked 13 hours on my dissertation. Although, according to Joan Bolker's book Writing Your Dissertation in 15 Minutes a Day, which I just re-read, it's better to measure your progress by number of pages written. It says,

If you fix an amount of time...it's possible to spend all or most of that time staring at the wall, and then you've both wasted time and produced nothing....The advantage to the many pages method is that it rewards fast writing....with a goal of five pages, the faster you can do them, the sooner your time is your own; this method rewards learning to write faster, and from what I've seen, fast writing produces no worse results than slow writing does.

She also recommends writing first, before doing anything else in the day.

This all sounds great, except my next few weeks are crowded with various appointments and out-of-town trips. I can't believe it, but I scheduled two trips for the remainder of July: one four days, and the other eight days. Argh. What about my momentum? I'm going to have to bring my computer and some books along and try to be disciplined.

One positive thing to report is that I was able to work every day this past week on my dissertation except today. It felt good. I think that's what Bolker means by her title: it's not the "fifteen minutes" that will get you done, it's the "a day" part—if you work every day, even for a short time, you can build from there.

No Holidays

I have a new plan: at least an hour a day on my dissertation, no matter what day it is. That includes weekends and holidays. I did it this weekend, even on the fourth of July. Still, it didn't add up to very much: I spent about 10 hours on my dissertation this week.

On the other hand, I had absolutely no problem working the requisite 6 hours a day at my new office job.

Maybe because at my office job I see the progress that I make on a daily basis, whereas the diss goes in circles.

A Start

I feel like last week I really started the dissertation. You know when you stop dithering around and really start something? That's where I am. I feel like I can start recording hours in good faith.

Thursday: 3 hours

Friday: 2 hours

Sunday: 2 hours

I shouldn't judge this early in the process, but my first impression is that the dissertation must be the most joyless part of grad school. Maybe because I'm still flailing around, trying to figure out the point. Nevertheless, it's better when I'm working than not working, because it's only when I'm working that the I-can't-do-this anxiety abates.

Maybe it's like runners who have to train a while before they feel the runner's high? I want to feel that dissertation high!